Sunday, February 17, 2008

NearbyNow is an innovative Los Altos, Calif. based start-up whose mission is to, "enable anyone, anywhere to find the nearest place to buy anything." Founded in 2005, NearbyNow makes the products in 194 shopping malls searchable via any web browser or cell phone. In this episode, Scott shares the strategies he used to grow NearbyNow to over 1 million visitors per month.

Here’s how the service works: Let’s say a mother-to-be is searching for maternity clothes. She enters her query into her local mall’s website where NearbyNow returns a listing of stores which match her search term. The top listing informs her of a sweater on sale at one of her favorite retailers. To ensure the store has the sweater in her size and desired color, she enters her request and in 10 minutes she receives a confirmation email or text message. With a click, the sweater is placed on hold until she is ready to make the purchase.

Shopping malls see NearbyNow as a way to stem the tide of online sales which they say reduces visits to their brick and mortar retailers. Scott shares several entrepreneurial insights he gathered from his experience as a product manager at numerous successful start-ups including E.piphany and Loudcloud.